 In this video, we're going to be talking about James Charles road rage and how a nuclear crisis was averted. What is up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution and one of my philosophies is what good is watching YouTube if we're not taking lessons and applying them to our own lives to improve them. So if you're into that stuff, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. Today's finished an awesome book, awesome awesome awesome book by Shane Parrish called Mental Models and the book is kind of about just better ways of looking at the world, making better decisions and it's kind of like this idea of not all of us trying to become geniuses or be perfect but the idea of avoiding as many mistakes as possible and there was an interesting concept brought up in this book and thinking about all of the recent James Charles drama and situations going on, I was like huh, maybe I can teach people about this concept as well by applying it to the James Charles situation. So let's start off with this, okay? Let's imagine, you don't even really have to imagine this is something that happens to all of us all the time especially if you live in Southern California because traffic out there is nuts and the topic that we're starting off with is road rage, alright? So imagine you're driving, right? Or this is something that just recently happened to you. You're driving, you're in a rush, you're in a hurry or you're just stuck in traffic, you're irritated, you're annoyed and somebody cuts you off, slams on the brakes and you almost hit them, right? What's that emotion that we get? We get so angry, we get furious, alright? And a lot of it is because we believe that that person was out to do something to harm us, alright? And this is where Hamlin's razor comes in and it's such an important concept especially if you're somebody who finds yourself getting angry all the time. So what the heck is Hamlin's razor? Hamlin's razor is this. It is an aphorism expressed in various ways including never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. So this was named after Robert J. Hamlin and it is a philosophical razor which suggests a way of eliminating unlikely explanations for human behavior. So let's apply this to the road rage situation. The way our brain works and it's part of our ego, right? We believe that that person was just ill-intentioned and they have some kind of strange personal vendetta against us. But think about that, like when we're not focused on our emotions or we're not letting our emotions overwrite our logic, like sit back and think about it, like what is the likelihood that that person even knows you exist, right? But our brain creates this story about how this person has so much malice towards us that they were going to speed up, cut in front of us, slam on their brakes with the precise timing that it takes to piss us off but also a verticare accident. Like think about the effort and the mathematical genius that would have to go into that other person's thought process in order to cut us off and make all these things happen, right? So what Hamlin's razor is just saying is it is probably a more logical explanation which can also help calm down our emotions to just imagine that person was just being dumb and not paying attention to the situation. Same thing goes for like this is something that I deal with all the time and I have to apply it on a regular basis. Have you ever put like your turn signal on and people aren't letting you over, right? Like the brain creates this story that that person sees your blinker and they're like, you know what, screw that guy or screw that lady. I am not letting them in. But I have to remind myself like chances are they just don't see my turn signal. Maybe they're being dumb and maybe they're like looking at their phone or maybe they're spaced out or whatever it is. Something that helps me remind this and have a little bit more, I don't know, empathy is remembering like, like there are instances where I'm like, oh crap, that person had their turn signal on, right? So Hamlin's razor and this kind of thought process helps me cut some other people some slack and it helps calm me down. Now here's another story where Hamlin's razor actually saved the world. All right. So back in 1962, during the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis where America and the Soviet Union, they weren't getting along too well. Well, they were both occupying international waters. All right. They had subs over there. So basically the United States was like, yo, we're going to send out some blank missiles to kind of like, you know, do a little, a little deal to maybe get some Russian subs to surface, but they're blank. We're not firing on you guys. We just want to know where the heck you guys are at. So they sent this message over to Russia and they said, listen, this is what we're doing. Now the problem is the problem with this was that Russia didn't tell their boys in the waters over in Cuba that this was happening. OK, so think about that for a second. So when these blank charges went off, the Russian dudes in that sub started to freak out and this was a Russian sub armed with nuclear weapons. So they believed that the United States was firing on them and they were like, oh, my God, we need to fire back and we need to send these nukes and nah, right. But thank God for this dude. This dude is Vasily Arkhipov. All right. So in order for them to fire their nuclear missiles, they needed three people to say, OK, yeah, let's do this. Well, two of them wanted to, but Vasily Arkhipov, he was like, nah, man. So basically he used Hamlin's razor in this situation. He's like, hey, like these charges went off way over here. United States probably has a technology to hit us if they wanted to. Maybe this was an accident. Maybe there is a better explanation for what happened. All right. So he convinced the other people on the ship to not fire these nuclear weapons. OK. And this is actually something that wasn't learned about or released to the public until about 40 years later. But think about it because because Vasily Arkhipov attributed stupidity rather than malice to the United States or even his own government by saying maybe they just didn't give us some information. It averted a nuclear crisis. So what the hell does this have to do with James Charles? One of the stories that just will not die down that I keep seeing popped up on my recommended feed is the drama between James Charles and Tati Westbrook. All right. So those of you who don't know what's going on, Tati Westbrook, she has a like vitamin line for like hair and nails and things like that. It's called Halo Beauty. Well, James Charles and Tati are friends or were friends, whatever. I don't know what's going on between them. But anyways, James Charles was at Coachella. OK, James Charles is James Charles. So he needed some security. He didn't buy his own security, whatever it is. So Sugar Bear hair, which also makes vitamins, which is a competitor of Tati, they gave James Charles some security. When James Charles got back from Coachella, he did a sponsored ad for them as a thank you on his Instagram. Tati Westbrook, rather than talking to James about how hurt she was, she did an Instagram story crying, talking about how betrayed she was, how hurt she was by this act. And just it has been crazy. It has been crazy like just seeing all this stuff like people are taking sides, people are siding with Tati Westbrook, like Shane Dawson has got involved. I think Jeffrey Starr got involved. You know, James Charles released an apology. People were still mad about him, at him about that. All sorts of craziness, all right? So where the hell does Hamlin's razor come in? OK, so in Tati's mind, in Tati's mind, James Charles, like the logic behind this is James Charles would have had to run into Sugar Bear hair, right? They offered this at Coachella, the security, and they made a deal like, OK, you're helping me with security. I'll help you with this. And James Charles would have had to sit there and say, you know what, in the middle of Coachella, in the middle of Coachella, he would say, you know what, Tati is one of my friends. Tati has this hairline. This is competition. This is something that I should not do. OK, or or James Charles would have said all these things in his mind. Remember, Tati and he would have had to say, you know what, screw Tati Westbrook, screw her. Even though she helped me and she's like a mother to me and she's been like a mentor to me and this YouTube beauty influencer thing, you know what, screw her. All right, so that is what Tati Westbrook's brain is telling her. Now, is that logical or or is it possible? Is it possible that a more logical explanation was James is young and dumb. James was at Coachella. James didn't think about getting security. James needed security. He ran into Sugar Bear Hair and they talked about a sponsorship deal in exchange for the security. And James, during Coachella, because Sugar Bear Hair was right in front of his face and Tati Westbrook wasn't, is it possible? Is it possible that in the middle of one of the biggest music festivals of the year, Tati Westbrook was not in the forefront of James Charles' mind and he made a very dumb and ignorant decision by accident. Which one makes more sense? James Charles maliciously trying to screw his friend over and upset her or him being an absent-minded dumb kid. All right, like think about that for a second. This is why Hamlin's razor is so, so, so important. And like this, like when I when I learned about this and there's some other stuff that I want to introduce to all of you as well. Like when I heard about this, I'm like, oh my God. Like, and again, my videos are to help all of you. Like think about how often this stuff happens to you. Like this is one of the reasons why I started out this video with the Road Rage incident. Think about how many times our ego tells us that that person was maliciously trying to hurt us. How many times does our brain tell us that, right? How healthy is that? Have you ever snapped at somebody? Have you ever just snapped on somebody? Maybe a friend, a family member, a co-worker, right? Maybe even your child, you snapped at them. And then when they explain the situation, you're like, oh, oh, my bad, right? Because the narrative that your brain made up was completely insane, right? So we need to start taking Hamlin's razor and applying it to our everyday life. Like, don't assume malice when it could be easily explained with stupidity, with ignorance, with absent-mindedness, with forgetfulness, whatever it is, right? Especially like if you have a child, no, scratch that. Especially, like, think about having a pet. Like, I have one beautiful cat. My beautiful girlfriend has another cat named Wyatt. And they do some weird stuff, right? Maya, sometimes she eats too fast and then she throws up. Like, I could either sit there and be like, she knows. She knows that I hate when she throws up and she did this on purpose. She threw up on this specific spot just to spite me. No, she's just a freaking cat. You know what I mean? So please, please, please, like, take a step back. The best thing you can do is get a pause button, which meditation can help you with. Pause and say, OK, was this person intentionally trying to harm me or could it be some type of mistake, right? And if we can do that for even just a moment, maybe we can have a conversation with that person rather than snapping on them or rather than going on Instagram and freaking out. Like, we can have a conversation with them and maybe figure out a different explanation than what our brain told us. All right? But anyways, again, go check out that book, Mental Models. It's available on Audible. By the way, this isn't sponsored, but I love reading and I've been on a reading kick lately. So check out this book. Shane Parrish also has like a whole blog. I'll link his blog and book and everything like that down below, all right? But anyways, that's all I got for this video. If you like this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you're new, make sure you subscribe and bring that notification bell because I make a ton of videos and a huge, huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on Patreon. You are all amazing. And if you would like to help support what I'm doing here and get involved in our monthly Q&A, some other perks and benefits by getting free copies of my books, click or tap right there, all right? Thanks again so, so much for watching. I'll see you next time.